In The Passionate Teacher, Ron Fried describes the Game of School (GOS) as what happens when teachers and students forsake intellectual work and instead engage in their classes as rituals. Take this opportunity to consider this chapter in light of some of the the other experiences that you've had this semester. What elements of the game of school are you seeing in your placements? How have you seen teachers fight the game of school in their classes? What similarities, if any, did you see between the descriptions of American classes in the Teaching Gap and the Game of School? Finally, what impact will this description of the GOS have on your own approach to teaching as expressed in your teaching philosophy?
In both the Teaching Gap and the Game of School, the authors make note of many reasons why American Education isn't reaching its potential. They discuss issues that have been plaguing American Education for generations, such as teachers spending more time on explaining directions and on disciplinary than teaching. There's no single answer to these, and many even form a cycle into "The Game" in which we all play.
Observation: So far in my observations I've seen a lot of "The Game" being played. Although mostly by students, I've also seen my teachers play a few minutes of The Game at times. In the middle school, students seem more motivated to do their work. When doing groupwork, they work together to come up with the answer and when they don't understand something it seems like they ask questions and help each other to actually learn the concept. In high school however, it seems like students are playing "The Game" and just trying to get the right answer rather than actually learning the concept behind it. Groupwork can quickly turn from a constructive activity to a situation where students are simply asking each other for the answers. From what I've seen so far, it seems like this occurs much more often in the high school than in the middle school. The students aren't the only ones playing the game though. In my both my high school and middle school classes I saw the game of school being played at its best by the teachers. One of the most common things seen in classes where students are unmotivated seems to be that if they're not causing a disruption to the rest of the class, they are simply ignored. In my high school class, there's a boy in the front row who was moved there to try and get him to pay better attention. Unfortunately, throughout the entire lecture and activity he simply sat staring at his empty paper. During the activity I went over and tried to help him get started on his worksheet showing him exactly how to do each part. When I asked the teacher about the student, he simply told me that the student just refused to do work and despite the teachers effort to motivate him, the student showed no improvement. So at this point, the teacher said that he wasn't being a disruption to the class so he had let up on his persistence. In the middle school, there was a student with somewhat similar characteristics but the teacher took a slightly different approach to the problem. The student again was very unmotivated to do his work, but instead of withdrawing himself from the class was very talkative. Very respectful of the teacher however, and although he was talkative during group activities he was very quiet and fairly attentive during lectures. To keep this student on task, the teacher frequently checked in on him asking him questions. When the teacher could tell that the student had had enough as the end of class was near, she made a compromise with the student saying asking him to answer just one question and if he got it right he could be finished for the day. She asked a relatively easy question, and when he got it right she gave him praise and quickly asked another question. She got the student to quickly answer 4 questions which were key to the activity and the student was happy to be finished with his work.
Reflection:
It was interesting to see the game of school being played in my schools. Although I had heard of the concept, I hadn't read too much on the theory since doing observations in previous years. After reading articles about it in class, I paid more attention to what was going on in the classroom. I wasn't too surprised to see that the students in the high school were more keen on getting the work done than actually learning what they were doing. From my own experiences, this has been the case in most of my observations both in a classroom as an observer and a participant. When I was in high school, there were a few classes (especially spanish) which I just simply copied a friends answers on homework or activities. I was actually really impressed by the way Mrs. Brocato handled the situation with her student. With a few minutes left, she made a "deal" with the student by asking him a question, and then proceeded to ask a few more before the student even realized he had answered more than he had bargained for. In the end, the student was extremely happy to be done with his work (only five minutes before class was over anyways) and the teacher had gotten him to focus and answer the most important questions in the activity. Although this may not work with every student, it showed me that every student has their own unique qualities and how you approach one student may not be exactly how you approach another. With the situation with the student in the high school, I'm not sure if this was the best approach. Granted, I'm in the classroom a lot less than the teacher is, I do my best to try and get him involved and since this have at least seen some progress with students work. He doesn't produce as much as the other students in the class, and so far he's seemed withdrawn from his classmates. In the last lab we did, he was working with another student and the two seemed to get along well. I checked in with them frequently and saw that his production definitely increased when he worked with others compared to just working with himself. When I'm student teaching I'll be sure to remember this and try to have him work with students he feels comfortable with to hopefully increase his production with his work.
Observation / Reflection #5: The Game of School
In The Passionate Teacher, Ron Fried describes the Game of School (GOS) as what happens when teachers and students forsake intellectual work and instead engage in their classes as rituals. Take this opportunity to consider this chapter in light of some of the the other experiences that you've had this semester. What elements of the game of school are you seeing in your placements? How have you seen teachers fight the game of school in their classes? What similarities, if any, did you see between the descriptions of American classes in the Teaching Gap and the Game of School? Finally, what impact will this description of the GOS have on your own approach to teaching as expressed in your teaching philosophy?In both the Teaching Gap and the Game of School, the authors make note of many reasons why American Education isn't reaching its potential. They discuss issues that have been plaguing American Education for generations, such as teachers spending more time on explaining directions and on disciplinary than teaching. There's no single answer to these, and many even form a cycle into "The Game" in which we all play.
Observation: So far in my observations I've seen a lot of "The Game" being played. Although mostly by students, I've also seen my teachers play a few minutes of The Game at times. In the middle school, students seem more motivated to do their work. When doing groupwork, they work together to come up with the answer and when they don't understand something it seems like they ask questions and help each other to actually learn the concept. In high school however, it seems like students are playing "The Game" and just trying to get the right answer rather than actually learning the concept behind it. Groupwork can quickly turn from a constructive activity to a situation where students are simply asking each other for the answers. From what I've seen so far, it seems like this occurs much more often in the high school than in the middle school. The students aren't the only ones playing the game though. In my both my high school and middle school classes I saw the game of school being played at its best by the teachers. One of the most common things seen in classes where students are unmotivated seems to be that if they're not causing a disruption to the rest of the class, they are simply ignored. In my high school class, there's a boy in the front row who was moved there to try and get him to pay better attention. Unfortunately, throughout the entire lecture and activity he simply sat staring at his empty paper. During the activity I went over and tried to help him get started on his worksheet showing him exactly how to do each part. When I asked the teacher about the student, he simply told me that the student just refused to do work and despite the teachers effort to motivate him, the student showed no improvement. So at this point, the teacher said that he wasn't being a disruption to the class so he had let up on his persistence. In the middle school, there was a student with somewhat similar characteristics but the teacher took a slightly different approach to the problem. The student again was very unmotivated to do his work, but instead of withdrawing himself from the class was very talkative. Very respectful of the teacher however, and although he was talkative during group activities he was very quiet and fairly attentive during lectures. To keep this student on task, the teacher frequently checked in on him asking him questions. When the teacher could tell that the student had had enough as the end of class was near, she made a compromise with the student saying asking him to answer just one question and if he got it right he could be finished for the day. She asked a relatively easy question, and when he got it right she gave him praise and quickly asked another question. She got the student to quickly answer 4 questions which were key to the activity and the student was happy to be finished with his work.
Reflection:
It was interesting to see the game of school being played in my schools. Although I had heard of the concept, I hadn't read too much on the theory since doing observations in previous years. After reading articles about it in class, I paid more attention to what was going on in the classroom. I wasn't too surprised to see that the students in the high school were more keen on getting the work done than actually learning what they were doing. From my own experiences, this has been the case in most of my observations both in a classroom as an observer and a participant. When I was in high school, there were a few classes (especially spanish) which I just simply copied a friends answers on homework or activities. I was actually really impressed by the way Mrs. Brocato handled the situation with her student. With a few minutes left, she made a "deal" with the student by asking him a question, and then proceeded to ask a few more before the student even realized he had answered more than he had bargained for. In the end, the student was extremely happy to be done with his work (only five minutes before class was over anyways) and the teacher had gotten him to focus and answer the most important questions in the activity. Although this may not work with every student, it showed me that every student has their own unique qualities and how you approach one student may not be exactly how you approach another. With the situation with the student in the high school, I'm not sure if this was the best approach. Granted, I'm in the classroom a lot less than the teacher is, I do my best to try and get him involved and since this have at least seen some progress with students work. He doesn't produce as much as the other students in the class, and so far he's seemed withdrawn from his classmates. In the last lab we did, he was working with another student and the two seemed to get along well. I checked in with them frequently and saw that his production definitely increased when he worked with others compared to just working with himself. When I'm student teaching I'll be sure to remember this and try to have him work with students he feels comfortable with to hopefully increase his production with his work.